Tenant Screening Checklist

Walk the application top to bottom: every adult occupant 18+ has a separate application, prior addresses cover the last three years, all employment fields populated, and the applicant has signed the screening authorization. Incomplete applications go back before any verification work — running a partial pull wastes the screening fee.

Match the photo, name, and date of birth on the ID against the application. Driver license, passport, or state ID — not a work badge or insurance card. Capture both sides of the ID for the file; the SSN on the application is what the screening vendor uses, so a transposed digit here is the most common reason a credit pull comes back as a no-hit file.

The signed FCRA disclosure and authorization is what lets you pull credit and criminal reports — without it on file, the screening report is unusable and the pull itself is an FCRA violation. Confirm the screening fee matches the published amount in your written criteria; charging more than the actual cost of screening is barred in CA, NY, and several other states.

Call landlords from two tenancies back, not just the current one — current landlords sometimes give a glowing reference to move a problem tenant along. Look up the property in county assessor records to confirm the phone number actually reaches the owner of record, not a friend posing as a reference.

Ask specifically about late fees charged, NSF returns, and any pay-or-quit notices served. The useful question is not 'did they pay rent?' but 'how many times did rent arrive after the grace period?' Document the prior landlord's name, the dates of tenancy, and the responses verbatim in the screening file.

Search the county housing court or unlawful-detainer index in every county the applicant has lived in over the last seven years — most screening vendors only pull the current state. Note that some jurisdictions (CA, NJ, parts of NY) seal eviction records when the case was dismissed or settled, and using sealed records as a basis for denial is itself a violation.

Two most recent pay stubs plus the prior year's W-2 is the standard documentation set. For self-employed applicants, ask for the prior two years of tax returns (1040 plus Schedule C or K-1) — bank statements alone don't separate gross deposits from net income.

Look up the employer's main number independently — applicant-provided supervisor cell phones are the most common screening fraud vector. Verify dates of employment, position, and gross pay; many HR departments will only confirm employment dates without compensation, in which case the pay stubs and W-2 carry the income proof.

Apply the same income-to-rent ratio you publish in your written screening criteria — most operators use 3x gross monthly rent. In source-of-income protected jurisdictions (NY, NJ, MA, many CA cities, DC), the ratio is calculated on the tenant's portion of rent only, not the gross rent, when a Section 8 voucher is involved. Counting the voucher portion against the income test is a Fair Housing violation.

TransUnion SmartMove, Experian RentBureau, or your PMS-integrated screening (AppFolio, Buildium, Yardi) — all return a tenant-facing soft pull that doesn't ding the applicant's score. Record the score and the reporting agency name; both are required on the FCRA adverse action notice if the application is later denied.

Discharged Chapter 7 bankruptcies older than two years and unrelated to housing are typically not a denial basis under most published criteria — pulling on them inconsistently is where disparate-impact claims start. Flag housing-related collections (prior landlord balances, utility writeoffs in tenant's name) separately from medical or student loan collections.

Save the full report PDF to the applicant file and write a one-paragraph summary referencing the score, the housing-related items, and any items that triggered a deviation from the published criteria. Retain per FCRA — five years from decision is the practical floor, longer in CA and NY.

HUD's 2016 guidance bars blanket criminal-history bans — each conviction must be evaluated for nexus to housing safety, recency, and severity. Arrests without convictions cannot be used at all. Several jurisdictions (Oakland, Seattle, NJ, NY) have stricter Fair Chance ordinances that delay the criminal check until after a conditional approval; check your locality before pulling.

Search the registry in every state the applicant has lived in over the last seven years — registry data is state-by-state and a single-state search misses cross-border histories. Document the search date and result; if a hit comes back, escalate to the regional manager before any communication with the applicant.

Bundle the credit report, criminal report, rental verification notes, employment verification notes, and income calculation into a single decision packet. The packet — not just the final yes/no — is what protects the firm if the decision is later challenged as discriminatory.

Walk through your published criteria — credit floor, income ratio, eviction lookback, criminal nexus rules — applied to this applicant the same way they were applied to the last twenty. Deviations need a documented business-justification reason in the file. Inconsistency between applicants is the single most common Fair Housing exposure.

Document the outcome: Approve, Conditional Approval (co-signer or higher deposit), or Deny. Note the specific criterion that drove the decision, not just 'failed screening.' For denials, the cited reason must reference the same criterion list the applicant received with the disclosure.

Required by FCRA §615(a) within a reasonable time of the denial. The notice must name the consumer reporting agency (TransUnion, Experian, etc.) with their address and toll-free number, state that the agency did not make the decision, and inform the applicant of the right to a free copy of the report and to dispute its accuracy. Missing this step is the most common FCRA class-action trigger.

Spell out the specific condition — qualified co-signer with verified 5x income, additional security deposit (subject to state caps), or last-month's rent — and the deadline to satisfy it before the unit goes back on the market. Conditions must trace to a documented criterion failure, not be applied selectively.

Send the approval with the lease offer, holding deposit instructions, and the move-in date. The holding deposit converts to security deposit on lease execution; if the applicant backs out, state law dictates how much can be retained (commonly the actual cost of holding the unit off-market). Clear the unit's other applications only after the holding deposit clears.